The Zig Zag book is Hahnemühle’s latest offering in their vast repertoire of paper products. See all the papers and sketchbooks I use here with places to purchase all of them. If you’d like to purchase your own, I’d love it if you’d use my Amazon Affiliate link HERE.
The Specs:
- 300 gsm/140 lb. watercolor paper
- part of the akadamie line with alpha-cellulose paper
- fine-grained, natural white, acid free
- 18 pages made from one accordion folded sheet (10 pages on one side including front and back inner cover, 8 pages on other side)
- hardcover bound in textured dark grey cloth
- unique corner to corner red elastic closure
The ZigZag book comes in four sizes, A5, A6, 5.5″ square and a mini 2″ square. Hahnemühle sent me three of the four sizes and I’ll be working through each of them over time. Today, I want to show you what I decided to do in the cutest edition to the paper line. The 2″ x 2″ Zig Zag.
First, it’s totally adorable. Let’s just get that out in the Universe. I wanted to open and close it over and over. What is it about mini things? Baby animals, mini chocolate Easter bunnies and the mini Zig Zag books have a lot in common. Completely cute and irresistible. (Yes, I still have chocolate bunnies on the brain, sigh.)
As you can see in the photo, the 2″ square Zig Zag is small. That’s a few grapes and one of my business cards in the photo. The book comes with a pretty paper wrap that matches the red corner to corner closure.
Alright, onto what I thought of the actual make of the book. I thought it would be much more fragile. Seriously, a loooonnnngg piece of paper, to me, should feel more vulnerable but it had real strength. I didn’t once feel like I was going to rip it or break the book. It makes a huge difference that it’s made of 140lb paper.
The Cover:
Once again, Hahnemühle hit it outta the park. I’ve oohed and aahed over Hahnemühle’s covers before. I love the texture of both the Grey Book and the Cappuccino book (toned sketchbooks). The cover of the Zig Zag is similar if not exactly like Hahnemühle’s watercolor book. There is the red elastic closure and an embossed rooster on the back as the only embellishment.
Speaking of the corner to corner elastic… I LOVE the uniqueness of this closure! Usually journals have an up and down elastic that keeps the book closed. The Zig Zag, more than any other journal, needs a closure. I’m tickled to see that Hahnemühle really thought outside the box on how to make a functioning but unique closure.
The elastic is securely embedded in the back cover and pulls over it’s opposite corner to keep the accordion/fan fold book closed. The RED elastic really makes this book stand out. (please note that the elastic is usually placed over the upper RIGHT corner, when I lettered my 2×2 I, of course, did it upside down. Hey, I’m dyslexic, what can I say?!! LOL).
One other nice feature, I was able to easily glue a piece of lettering paper onto the cover. I was, once again trepidatious. I shouldn’t have worried. Seriously, everything I worried about has been unfounded. The cloth cover took glue perfectly.
The Paper:
I was thrilled with how well this paper worked, it’s similar to cold pressed. Much like my worry about ripping the paper & gluing the cover was unfounded, so was my trepidation with the paper. I got this paper quite wet with many colors as I rainbow painted the eighteen pages (both sides). They didn’t curl at all and after the whole thing dried, it folded up beautifully back into the covers. I had no trouble at all. Although this is technically student grade paper, I thought it was and upgrade from that. I wouldn’t hesitate to use it.
The paper also took my Zebra brush pen lettering perfectly and all the pencil lines I did to keep everything straight, erased beautifully without hurting the painted surface beneath. In fact, I did make a spelling mistake. I was able to quickly scrub the letter off the paper without ruining the whole book. This thrilled me. I then added a little more watercolor to fill in the scrubbed off color. It is correctable even when using black brush pen. That’s good paper.
What Can I Use Them For?
An accordion folded book like the Zig Zag book makes great sketchbooks for urban sketchers and storytellers. With such a long piece of unbroken paper, you can do panoramas and other connected art. My friend Sandra did a terrific storybook and thorough review of the Zig Zag too so if you’d like to see how it took other media like frisket etc. go see her review on Doodlewash. Now I’m really looking forward to using the other two books. I intend to do a flower cornucopia with the 5″ square Zig Zag. There will be flowers spilling out everywhere. I wonder who I’ll give that one to?
These books also make great presents, as this 2″ square is. My cousin Coralie is marrying her wonderful Andrew in a month. I’m ridiculously happy for her and when I saw this mini accordion book, I knew just what I wanted to do. I collect quotes. When I come across something that speaks to me, moves me or inspires me I write it down. These two quotes seemed so highly appropriate. To let love be your first choice is alway your best choice. Here are the quotes if you have trouble reading them on the video.
“You meet thousands of people and none of them really touch you, and then you meet one person and your life is changed forever.”
~ Jamie Randall, from the movie: “Love And Other Drugs”
“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”
~ Mignon Mclaughlin
The Final Product:
I’m doing a GIVEAWAY starting this (afternoon) Monday April 22 – Saturday April 27 (midnight PST). You could win your own 5″ x 5″ Zig Zag book by Hahnemühle! I’ll be including a bunch of other stuff so go enter!
alice
love the quotes you chose. this turned out wonderfully and they are going to love it! I like you video, too, the side to side flow of the book and the way you showed it. nice addition to the Hahnemühle line!
Jean Marmo
This is just delightful! Love the colors and the quotes. The reveal is such fun! Well done!
Susan C
What a perfect gift for the bride and groom! It’s beautiful.
Mary Hillebrand
I also loved the quotes you chose and I added them to my journal to share. Thanks for the opportunity to win one of these accordion books!
sandra strait
Excellent video and great review! Your lettering gets more fabulous by the day. I am so in love with the paper in these books. I hope they’ll sell it in sheet or block too.
Susan
Really neat book!
Brenda Abbott
The book is so Adorable! Like you…. tiny things draw me in. And what you did with this tiny zig-zag book is beautiful! Thank you and Hahnemühle for the chance to win one of these books (larger version) and more.
Helen Wilding
Ah so lucky! (Well not luck – all your hard work really). Anyway, just a tad jealous about the Hahnemuehle zig zag books, which will cost a fortune in Australia no doubt when they arrive. Oh how simple would that make my big streetscape project rather than having to hand make my own zig zag sketchbooks by wrestling a big roll of watercolour paper! I love the Hahnemuehle watercolour paper that they have in the watercolour books, and although I know it is meant to be student quality it is perfect for the work I do in pen and ink with watercolour washes. It really lets the colour shine, and the texture is perfect for fountain pen. I’m assuming it is the same kind of paper, although possibly thicker?
Thanks again for your reviews – I’m really enjoying following your blog whenever I can get time to pop in!